Credit union Alterna has named Capital C as its new marketing agency of record.
The incumbent agency, Ryan Edwards Communications, took part in the company’s April review that also included four other agencies.
“We had been working with Ryan Edwards for a long time, about a decade actually,” said Kimberley Ney, senior vice-president of marketing, communications and corporate social responsibility. “We thought it was time to refresh, so we went through an RFP. We want to go through a rebranding.”
Ney said Capital C edged out its competitors by effectively leveraging its exclusive relationship with Fresh Intelligence, a market research company it partnered with in March.
“We’re a member-owned organization, a bottom-up organizational structure,” she said. “All our stakeholders have a say in how we’re performing and what our emphasis should be. Fresh Intelligence [research panels] really give us the opportunity to have the consumers design the institution they want.”
Alterna, which has 22 branches across Ontario and spends approximately $1.4 million annually on marketing, traditionally focuses on customer acquisition and loyalty through direct mail, point-of-sale materials and local advertising. Ney said that will change.
“We have to spend wisely, get more segmented around messaging, and use more of an e-marketing approach,” Ney said. She does not see much online interactivity in the banking sector, and is looking to take a leadership role through Fresh Intelligence’s online panel research discussions.
“It will be a very secure discussion, but also very interactive… Rather than using the traditional machine gun approach to marketing, we’re going to have an opportunity to really target.
“I don’t see the marketing spend going up significantly, I see the effectiveness and the return on investment going up,” she added.
Capital C is currently redesigning Alterna’s online banking platform, which is planned to go live alongside the new brand in the second quarter of 2010. In the meantime, the agency is working with employees on internal branding.
The Ryan Edwards materials and platform that are currently in market will be used until the relaunch.
